


Face The Music

by The_Wiggler



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:28:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26104207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wiggler/pseuds/The_Wiggler
Summary: After 'living' for long enough, memories tend to blend together - especially when you've been dead longer than you've been alive.
Relationships: PJ & Lefty, PJ & Maxwell Puckett
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Face The Music

What year was it, exactly? 1932? No - 1849? That wasn’t right, either. Not even close. But memories were strange, and they disappeared as easily as a ghost could fade away into mist, so all PJ knew was that he couldn’t remember the year he died. Years and years and decades all stacked on top of each other, and after so long, remembering his death felt like trying to hold onto water. Or anything. Because PJ couldn’t touch anything. Yeah.

But he _should_ have remembered! It’s not like PJ was all that old of a ghost, and there were all sorts of spirits who were ancient - old (what should he call them? No matter what he said, it felt like they’d curse him if they heard) - and they remembered _**everything**_. Not that he’d ever approached one of them himself, but he’d heard that they could pick up memories from thousands of years ago and tell you exactly what had happened on any day, with pictures. If remembering was like holding sand, then old spirits were like the poltergeists of memories.

But PJ wasn’t a poltergeist, or much of anything, really. So his older memories were faint - something about a ‘Mother’? Oh, and he had a Father, too, but he was only allowed to call him ‘Sir.’ And - a brother? D...something. So there was Mother, Sir, and D-something. And him. But then PJ wasn’t there anymore.

* * *

Nevermind, PJ - PJ didn’t want to think about this any longer. All his practice smiling was being wasted right then, because his mouth curled down, and his eyes - oh, he was crying. Again. Awful.

“...rbitrary skepticism I hear?” A disapproving voice grew louder and louder. “You’ve got a hip-hop umbrella for a sidekick, and sentient buildings are where you draw the line?”

“Max!” Tears still dripped from PJ’s face, but that was A-Okay so long as Max was back from school. Max was special, and alive, and a ducky shincracker - no wait, he and the scary girl had stared at PJ last time he said that - , and had special powers like a superhero. Most importantly, he was PJ’s friend (probably) and friends stuck together, so when he reached the top of the steps, PJ dive-tackled him with a hug -- _and then nearly pushed him down the stairs; oh gosh oh gosh he was so sorry--!_

“I’m just saying -- Oof.” Max stumbled backward, limbs went flying everywhere, and after a solid thirty seconds of yelping, “Sorry!”s and the bat slipping out of its backpack and falling on the stairs, both PJ and Max were clinging to each other ten feet in the air.

(First fighting the bat,and now this - PJ was getting stronger, see?)

“Yo, PJ?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you set me down?”

“Yeah.”

Nobody moved. Max stared at the ground dead-eyed.

“Now would be a good time to put me down,” he deadpanned. So he meant -- _Ohhh._

Max was back on the floor in seconds; in a couple more, he picked up the bat and shoved it in his pack again, strolling casually down the hall in what had to be one of the smoothest recoveries PJ had ever seen. Not that he had much to compare to - PJ didn’t make a habit of picking up and dropping other spirits - , but he would have felt the same way even if he had. PJ, on the other hand, trailed a few inches behind, covering his eyes with his fingers the way Isaac did watching kiss scenes in anime. He could hide the shame that way. And the tears.

“Are you -- “ He started, but Max shook his head.

“Mad? Nah,” he said, entering his bedroom with a yawn. “Maybe if you were, I don’t know, a solid jerk, hit me on purpose, and didn’t look like an eight year old who’d cry over a dead mosquito, but you’re not, so we’re cool.” A pause. “Speaking of crying, what happened? Did Lefty kick the bucket?”

PJ shook his head, flying through the door as Max closed it, and said, “No, he didn’t kick any buckets! _Not that he could, since he’s just a hand_ …” Had Max forgotten that? “Hands don’t have legs, Max. You need legs for kicking.”

“You don’t say.” Max quirked a smile that quickly faded. “What about my other question?”

...Right. _Why_ PJ was crying. It shouldn’t be too embarrassing; PJ cried all the time! Or...used to. He cried less now, even before the Pucketts showed up, because it was easier to stare at the wall and wallow in his own hopelessness than let anything out. Because even though it stung and burned to feel tears in your eyes and your temperature rise when you cried, you usually felt better in the end.

But they were friends, and friends didn’t keep secrets from each other.

“Just thinking about how I died.” A pause, and Max’s eyes widened in understanding. “Or not remembering, exactly? It’s all fuzz and static, but I --” The tears were back. His eyes were little water fountains by now.

“Woah woah woah.” Max waved his hands. “First off, no way I’m qualified for this. This is where I find the ghostherapist or whatever --”

“That doesn’t sound like a real word.”

“-- , but that’s not happening. Maybe try focusing on something else? Do you have any happy memories?” The sight of PJ tapping his fingers together awkwardly must have been enough for Max, who promptly slapped his hand with his face. “Yeah, I know. But I get it: Turning your brain off’s an exercise in futility, so let’s try something else. How’d you meet Lefty?”

PJ tilted his head, fingers still tapping incessantly, and mumbled.

* * *

(The thing was that he couldn’t remember _meeting_ Lefty either. Imagining a time when they weren’t together was like imagining Mr Puckett learning how to play Monopoly: It just didn’t happen.)

(Still, that meant he had more memories of Lefty than he could count, so at least he could tell Max a story, like - like when they came up with their own sign language.)

[we need a faster way to communicate], Lefty had said, dragging his finger in the dust on the floor letter by letter. [if a spirit attacks they won’t wait for us to write or read].

PJ suppressed a shudder. Everyone knew that spirits absorbed each other to heal, but until this point, he’d always avoided the fighting by hiding in an old, abandoned building that no one else bothered with. It hadn’t been turned into a convenience store yet - that wouldn’t happen for another decade - , but rowdy kids threw rocks in the windows, and there was nothing worth looking at, so nobody cared about the shoddy old house with graffiti on the walls. But everyone knew that just because something hadn’t happened yet didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

“Hot diggity, are you saying we’ll form a _psychic link?_ ”

Lefty paused as if to consider it, then wrote, [we can’t force a link but making a secret code only we can understand isn’t a bad idea. it’s not like ill speak to anyone else].

Not saying PJ wasn’t smart enough to learn any secret code took effort (even if he’d been certain of that fact), but PJ managed. Somehow. Letting down Lefty by admitting he _couldn’t_ felt **wrong** , so PJ closed his eyes, twisted his face into a thinking position, and thought. Hard. He thought of how invading spirits could gobble him up or kidnap him without much trouble, and how older spirits were so scary, and about those hooligans who threw stones at the buildin -- 

...Wait…

“The rock-throwers!” He exclaimed. “One of them kept waving her hands in place of words, and the others understood her. Not that, uh, we could copy it when she used both hands.”

Lefty didn’t even hesitate before first folding his hand into a fist, then extending his middle and pointer fingers into a V. He held still for a moment (presumably to make sure PJ saw, but it wasn’t necessary; PJ would never ignore his only friend), then ducked the V in a semi-circle. Once done, he dragged a finger along the dust-covered floor: [that’s your name].

“Me?” PJ askied, pointing out himself. Once Lefty confirmed that yes, he _was_ talking about the only other ghost in the room, PJ swallowed hard. “Then you get a name back!”

Deciding took an embarrassingly long amount of time. Where Lefty had taken seconds to come up with a sign for PJ, PJ took several hours, buzzing in circles and mumbling to himself until he finally zipped back, nervous determination coming off him in waves. Staring intensely at his hand (not that he wanted to ignore Lefty, but because he had to be certain this would come out absolutely _perfectly_ ), PJ mimicked Lefty’s semi-circle with one of his own, but where Lefty used a V, PJ first extended his pointer and thumb to make an L, then lowered his pointer to extend his pinky instead. “Here’s yours.”

They spent the rest of the night coming up with signs for individual words, not worrying about grammar structure. ‘Spirit,’ ‘sorry’ and ‘hello,’ came first, followed by ‘ghost’, and then the words started to blur together. Not needing sleep meant they could work without rest, interrupted only by every creak and hiss (and PJ’s subsequent freak out afterwards). But there were too many words to make up in a single night, so in the following days, they’d create a sign whenever they saw something new. (“That sunset’s pretty enough to make me forget my torturous existence! This sign works for it, right?”)

* * *

“Ol’ Lefty has a good memory,” PJ said, curled up and hugging the mist replacing his legs. “Better than mine, so whenever I messed up on a sign, he was there to help out. We’ve never both forgotten a sign before, and even if we did, we could just make up new ones! Only us two and Hissin’ Pete know about it, so - oh, but I don’t think Hissin’ Pete can understand the code. He doesn’t react when Lefty makes rude signs at him.”

“Or he’s just got thick skin,” Max suggested. “That red skin dye he uses might be poisonous. Gotta build up an immunity.” When told that no, Hissin’ Pete _didn’t_ dye his skin (He wasn’t a poltergeist, Max, so that should have been obvious), Max flopped down on his bed, obviously heartbroken. “There go my hopes and dreams of dyeing red. Ed’s gonna win our bet.”

(They had a bet about dyeing their skin?)

But PJ couldn’t focus on Max’s strange betting habits. He was too busy staring at Max who, after rolling on his back with screwed-shut eyes, cracked one eye open, looking PJ up and down. Max, who had tried to distract PJ from thinking about his death and previous life - assuming that’s what he was doing in the first place. Yes, that’s what it _looked_ like, but since when had PJ been observant? It could always be idle curiosity, or getting PJ to change the subject and not bring the room down with his own misery, but...that didn’t sound like Max. So he stared, and stared, and then finally --

“Why did you do it?”

“What?”

“Try to cheer me up,” PJ responded. “Unless you weren’t. That’s also on the table.”

If PJ was confused, it was nothing in comparison to the look of dawning bewilderment on Max’s face. Vacant gaze shifted to an awkward grimace, and finally biting his lip in a distinctly un-Max fashion. If PJ didn’t know better, he would have wagered the spectral looked flustered - nothing like the snarky anti-hero PJ knew him as and for. Awkwardness and fluster filled the air between Max, who didn’t know what to say, and PJ, who didn’t know what to say either, and wasn’t about to interrupt so long as it was Max’s turn to speak. So he waited, letting his mind drift to the rhythmic ticking of the clock, then to how while Lefty’s presence was a constant, PJ had been branching out more and more (he’d _followed Max to school_ , a heretofore unprecedented show of daring from the young ghost), then to how if he and Lefty had always known each other, that had to mean they had to have _lived and died together_ \--

“You’re doing it again.” The ghost’s inner ramblings were coolly interrupted by a casual drawl. “Look, you deserve to be happy, okay? We’re friends, I guess--” (“ _I knew it!_ ”) “-- and friends help each other out. Remembering how you died, that can’t be fun. What was I supposed to do: Ask you how it happened?”

PJ nodded in agreement - to remembering being unpleasant, not to being asked how he died, but still tapped his fingers together in confusion, looking off to the side. It made sense, but still -- “So I shouldn’t take your advice? I was just following your example - because that’s what friends do, even if they’re a bad influence!”

“Heh. I’ve got a punk rock skater vibe going on, but good luck rocking it in pajamas.” Max cracked a smirk. “But seriously, what did I say to get you thinking _that_?”

What a weird question - hadn’t Max said it just a few days ago?

But that was fine. PJ was ready to remind him.

“When you came back Friday! You said you were done running and had learned the truth about your Mom, so _I’m learning from you!_ ” Max's eyes widened, and PJ plowed on. “It’s brave, you know. Remembering. Learning. And I’ve never been very brave. My memory isn’t...good, so I can’t remember things too long ago, like how I died or how my parents -- “ The rush of words was cut off by droplets of water at the corners of his eyes. Again. Awful. PJ wouldn’t have blamed Max if he walked out then and there: PJ would have if he only had the guts to do it. But Max didn't. Instead, he swallowed thickly.

“So you’re thinking about it to prove something to yourself. Is that it?” Barely giving time for an answer, he continued. “ Even trying in the first place puts you ahead _some_ people I know -- “ (Was that bitterness in his voice?) “ -- but you don’t need to hurt yourself just to prove you’re brave. Don’t bite off more than you can chew just to follow my example.”

...Oh.

PJ gaped with wide eyes as one, three, five seconds passed by - only to find the ground absolutely _fascinating_ as a heat began settling in his cheeks even hotter than when Mr Spender had asked him his name. Max...thought he was _**brave**_. No one had ever told him that before - not that PJ could blame them! There were so many scary things in the world, like scorpions, and elderly scorpions, and he’d always been hyper-aware of them, so when he finally processed that Max didn't think he was a coward, he asked, “Do you mean it?”

“It’s not sarcasm,” Max said promptly - which wasn’t what he’d asked, but was good to know. “Facing the music is important and all, but forcing it? I said I was done running because avoiding the truth wouldn’t help anybody, not -- “ ...He sighed. “Look, PJ, do you really want to do this?”

...Did he? The question hung in the air heavily; PJ could almost see the words hanging above them both, but he closed his eyes to think instead of looking.

Remembering hurt. Even the idea of it brought a thick twist to his stomach and a weight in his throat, like someone had given him a brick to swallow before punching him in the stomach. And yet, he’d be lying if he said that he wanted to stay ignorant. Not knowing a whit about his life before dying was almost as bad as trying to remember - and it was his life he wanted to recall, not a gruesome death (because it had to be gruesome, or else he wouldn’t be around this long). Having parents - what was that like?

“A little,” he said finally. “I want to learn about my life.”

Max sat up, holding out his fist for PJ to hold. “We’ll work on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> My anti-depressants ran out, and then this happened.
> 
> I just...love PJ? He's fun to write (and so is Max, but Max is _hard_.
> 
> Also, fun fact: Ghostherapy is a real word according to Google.


End file.
